Stealing Neighbors Bandwith

[Doc4]

Yeesh, we're all reaching for the nuclear solution here fellas. She's still got to live beside this chap for decades to come, so maybe "getting more flies with honey" would work better?

Forget about "confronting" him ... she should just invite him over for tea, and tell him the story ... slow internet, called MCP, found cause ... don't go into "stealing" or anything like that. Take the "you probably didn't realise" route and give him an "honourable" way out as this being an "innocent mistake". If, of course, his bandwidth use of her computer has caused her to have extra costs on her bill, ask him to pony up. Tell him that the MCP has confirmed that he's "accidentally" done the same to various other neighbours.

Odds are, he'll knock it off.

 

[Mojo88]

Yeesh, we're all reaching for the nuclear solution here fellas. She's still got to live beside this chap for decades to come, so maybe "getting more flies with honey" would work better?

Forget about "confronting" him ... she should just invite him over for tea, and tell him the story ... slow internet, called MCP, found cause ... don't go into "stealing" or anything like that. Take the "you probably didn't realise" route and give him an "honourable" way out as this being an "innocent mistake". If, of course, his bandwidth use of her computer has caused her to have extra costs on her bill, ask him to pony up. Tell him that the MCP has confirmed that he's "accidentally" done the same to various other neighbours.

Odds are, he'll knock it off.

This is about where she is with this. I don't want to say anything because she has to live there and you never know what will happen. What little I know of him is that he can't help himself and will start fishing and asking questions about her internet. I told her in that case I would just be direct and tell him you know what he is doing and it needs to stop. I think he is a big time on line gamer and was using the additional band with to gain speed. In my mind it is stealing and how could you trust him again? What a way to ruin a relationship of ten years.

 

[hydro-magic]

On a more serious note, I am no computer expert, but what about enabling MAC address filtering on your router? I enabled that on mine (a cheap Cisco router), and even if you know the password, you cannot log into my Wifi network, unless I have your MAC address on my whitelist. Look at this article for some more information.

You're right but there's a way to get around that by spoofing the MAC address.

 

[Legion]

How do you know it is this neighbor and not another?

 

[Prof. Moriarty]

I would just secure the network like others have said. Then go to his door and politely tell him to stop, don't threaten with calling the cops just yet.

"FBI Surveillance Van"

Mine was called FBI Party Van

 

[Mojo88]

How do you know it is this neighbor and not another?

From my understanding it showed that he was logged on to their internet. I asked my friend and he said it showed his name, it said Williams (not the real name) family computer. My friend suspected that he was (Daisy Chaining)? and getting all available bandwith possible. My sister said that everything is running much faster and not buffering as much.

 

[StillShaving]

I would not confront the person directly, I would just increase the security and let it be. The OP knows what he has done and if he is so smart I would wonder why he/she could not afford their on service.

I might get cheeky and change my SSID so that he knows I am on to him. Something like the forth entry down:

Or

If you have a mid/higher-end Wi-Fi router, on most you can set up a second guest network, which only allows access out to the public internet and not back into your home network. You could set that up to mimic what you currently have, so he does not immediately notice the change, but configure it such that the maximum bandwidth is limited. Basically make this guy get his internet through a tiny straw in order to frustrate him.

 

[eth]

From my understanding it showed that he was logged on to their internet. I asked my friend and he said it showed his name, it said Williams (not the real name) family computer.

Most devices send their hostname (computer name in most desktop OS, device name in most mobile OS) when requesting an IP address, and most routers register the hostname. Apple devices tend to default to "John Smiths Macbook" or the likes, very revealing. Most people name their Windows computers as suggested, Williams family computer, Johns computer or the likes.

My friend suspected that he was (Daisy Chaining)? and getting all available bandwith possible. My sister said that everything is running much faster and not buffering as much.

Possible, but unlikely. Let's say all neighbours have 10 Mbps synchronous internet links, and the neighbour in question is within reach of five neighbours. He cannot combine these links and use them as one 50 Mbps link, he can only use them as five 10 Mbps links. If he's into gaming I'd guess he runs all his bandwidth intensive activities (multimedia streaming, file sharing) on "stolen" link(s), and does gaming on his own. Gaming isn't bandwidth intensive at all, but depends on low latency and having available bandwidth to spare. Playing online games via a wireless network in the next-door house is a recipe for latency issues.

Hiding your SSID and using a MAC filter are trivial obstacles to bypass, and are more of an inconvenience to yourself than a proper security measure in my opinion. It will only stop people who connect to your network by accident. When discussing Wi-Fi encryption, keep in mind that it serves two purposes; protecting your own network traffic from eavesdropping (which I personally find more important), and preventing unauthorized users from connecting to your network (convenient, but less important than the other).

Some key points to Wi-Fi encryption:
- Do not use WEP, it is trivial to both decrypt your traffic and connect to your network
- When using WPA or WPA2, use CCMP (also known as AES), and not TKIP*. TKIP has proven weaknesses that makes it mostly straightforward to decrypt your traffic.
- Turn off WPS on your access point/router (WPS is the mechanism that lets you enter a PIN code to connect to the network). Gaining access to a WPS-enabled network can be done in a few hours, regardless of what other security measures are in use. It does not affect the possibility of decrypting traffic, but once someone gains access to your network other forms of intercepting your traffic is possible.
- Change pre-configured network names (e.g. InternetProvider_F9A3DD) and keys (sometimes printed on bottom of access point/router), for many devices it is known how the key is generated, and thus finding the pre-configured key is trivial.
- Do not use a commonly used SSID (network name), this prevents anyone from using a rainbow table to finding the keys to decrypt your traffic.
- Use a long passphrase, WPA allows phrases up to 63 characters, and this cartoon is all that needs to be said about making a good password.

*Strictly speaking (according to the standards), TKIP is the encryption mechanism of WPA, and CCMP (AES) is the encryption mechanism of WPA2. However, most routers will let you combine them as you like, so both WPA-CCMP and WPA2-TKIP are possible configurations. The only reason not to use CCMP is device compatibility, in such cases I'd recommend replacing your device and sticking to CCMP.

If you follow all advice listed above, your network will be very difficult to break. The more likely way of gaining access is reading the passphrase off the note on your fridge or similar. If you can't turn off WPS on your router, the PIN can be easily bruteforced, and so the passphrase can be discovered.

As far as what to do about it in addition to securing the network properly, I know nothing about the legal possibilities. In case of a malicious user who purposely broke into my network I would not hesitate to manipulate his network traffic (redirecting random requests to certain less advisable parts of the Internet, replace all images on websites, translate all pages to Japanese...) or other annoying things.

 

[Corsair66]

Theft of services is a crime. Full stop.

Confronting criminals is a job for the police. Make the report, supply whatever proof you've got, and let the wheels of justice grind the thief as fine as possible.

 

[gearchow]

Theft of services is a crime. Full stop.

Confronting criminals is a job for the police. Make the report, supply whatever proof you've got, and let the wheels of justice grind the thief as fine as possible.

Around here the Police don't even bother with car burglary and often will only take reports of home B&E (they tend to take serious criminal/home owner involvement though), there is no way they are going to spend any amount of time investigating somebody vampiring bandwidth.

-jim

 

[Toothpick]

I use my phone as a hotspot at home so anyone piggy backing on me gets kicked off numerous times per day since I only turn it on when I'm going to use it. I doubt the signal gets picked up by the neighbors anyway.

If i were in her shoes I'd just change the security and password and be done with it. IF he hacked in again that's where I'd be peeved and do something about it. I'd tell my neighbors too but I wouldn't make it a point to go knocking on doors. Just in casual conversation as I see them "Hey I found out someone around here was stealing my internet, you better check yours too.". And you know all it would take is to tell one person, pretty soon everyone would know.

My wifi network was called "Comcast Sucks". Someone around my friends house called his "A1Killa" I always thought that was comical considering the "rough" neighborhood it was..."ooo better not hack his internet"

 

[Toothpick]

here's some funny ones

 

[Teppanyaki]

Hiding your SSID and using a MAC filter are trivial obstacles to bypass, and are more of an inconvenience to yourself than a proper security measure in my opinion. It will only stop people who connect to your network by accident. When discussing Wi-Fi encryption, keep in mind that it serves two purposes; protecting your own network traffic from eavesdropping (which I personally find more important), and preventing unauthorized users from connecting to your network (convenient, but less important than the other).

Some key points to Wi-Fi encryption:
- Do not use WEP, it is trivial to both decrypt your traffic and connect to your network
- When using WPA or WPA2, use CCMP (also known as AES), and not TKIP*. TKIP has proven weaknesses that makes it mostly straightforward to decrypt your traffic.
- Turn off WPS on your access point/router (WPS is the mechanism that lets you enter a PIN code to connect to the network). Gaining access to a WPS-enabled network can be done in a few hours, regardless of what other security measures are in use. It does not affect the possibility of decrypting traffic, but once someone gains access to your network other forms of intercepting your traffic is possible.
- Change pre-configured network names (e.g. InternetProvider_F9A3DD) and keys (sometimes printed on bottom of access point/router), for many devices it is known how the key is generated, and thus finding the pre-configured key is trivial.
- Do not use a commonly used SSID (network name), this prevents anyone from using a rainbow table to finding the keys to decrypt your traffic.
- Use a long passphrase, WPA allows phrases up to 63 characters, and this cartoon is all that needs to be said about making a good password.

*Strictly speaking (according to the standards), TKIP is the encryption mechanism of WPA, and CCMP (AES) is the encryption mechanism of WPA2. However, most routers will let you combine them as you like, so both WPA-CCMP and WPA2-TKIP are possible configurations. The only reason not to use CCMP is device compatibility, in such cases I'd recommend replacing your device and sticking to CCMP.

If you follow all advice listed above, your network will be very difficult to break. The more likely way of gaining access is reading the passphrase off the note on your fridge or similar. If you can't turn off WPS on your router, the PIN can be easily bruteforced, and so the passphrase can be discovered.

Very comprehensive! I'm impressed. I assume that you are either very into computers or do something like this as part of your job?

 

[Rick2035]

My limited understanding is that there are 3 ways to secure a Wi-Fi network.

1) Turn off SSID/network name broadcasts. A minor inconvenience.
2) MAC address filtering. I had a lot of trouble in the past doing this, so I don't do this anymore.
3) WPA2 password with a strong password (random number/letter generated password as long as possible).

My understanding is that WPA2 with a strong password is significantly more effective than either or both of the other options. MAC address filtering can be "spoofed" or bypassed, and apparently there are ways of determining what networks are in the area even if the ID/name is not being broadcast.

As a joke, I have heard of people naming their network "FBI Surveillance Van".

Your neighbor sounds unethical. I'm curious what their response will be. I suspect denial.

Dulles Airport in DC has this as a WIFI network name. I chuckled at first, then thought, "Well, maybe..."

Cheers,

Rick

 

[Rick2035]

Also, I have an inexpensive but highly rated network analyzer (which might be a good search name to use on the App Store) that does a very good job of scanning all my ports right from my iPad. Every so often (like just now) I scan my network to see who/what's connected. I've named all my devices with easy to remember names using a personalized, but anonymous, naming convention. With an app your sister may be able to keep better watch over her network without having to learn a ton of networking skills. If she suspects something, she can again call on her friend to do the indepth analysis.

Food for thought.

 

[cb91710]

change to wpa2. its pretty hard to get through wpa2 although not impossible!
and yes, she should confront him.. and let the others on the block know about it too!
but confront him before telling others about it!

Even more secure.... MAC address filtering.

Simply block any MAC addresses that do not belong to her or family.
A bit of a pain to set up, but once done, it's done.

 

[hudson_macbeth]

Even more secure.... MAC address filtering.

Simply block any MAC addresses that do not belong to her or family.
A bit of a pain to set up, but once done, it's done.

Mac addresses can be spoofed pretty easily. As a matter of fact, many new wireless routers have the ability built in, ostensibly for cable Internet providers who will not allow more than one Mac address to route through the modem

 

[cb91710]

while a great idea for the general public, mac addresses can be spoofed. A sys admin would probably know how...

Only if he took the time to log the MAC addresses of other connected systems.

 

[cb91710]

Yeesh, we're all reaching for the nuclear solution here fellas. She's still got to live beside this chap for decades to come, so maybe "getting more flies with honey" would work better?

Forget about "confronting" him ... she should just invite him over for tea, and tell him the story ... slow internet, called MCP, found cause ... don't go into "stealing" or anything like that. Take the "you probably didn't realise" route and give him an "honourable" way out as this being an "innocent mistake". If, of course, his bandwidth use of her computer has caused her to have extra costs on her bill, ask him to pony up. Tell him that the MCP has confirmed that he's "accidentally" done the same to various other neighbours.

Odds are, he'll knock it off delete her network from his list and continue stealing from others.

Fixed that for you.

He needs to stop stealing from everyone, not just her. Many times, these people have their own connections, but log in through other's networks to participate in illegal activity... Music and movie sharing, child porn, etc...
People are "smart" enough these days to avoid using their own traceable accounts for these activities because the RIAA, movie industry, and FBI are not shy about pursuit of violators.

 

[rxonmymind]

Wow. Didn't know people would go to these lengths. But I have taken a good password approach that's more like a novel with copywriter date than a single word approach. Good luck finding that vintage book! Anyway, sometimes I wish I had super software to "ping" back at these jerks who have nothing better to do than steal, infect your computer, send spam or Trojans. Just a simple "right back at ya" kind of software that makes them know you love them too. Lol. Ah we'll, stuff of sci if.